


You Chose Wrong

by Unkn0wn_Err0r



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending, Character Death, Cyberpunk 2077 Spoilers, Death, Drug Use, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Medical Trauma, Nomad V (Cyberpunk 2077), Not Beta Read, POV First Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pov you’re an asshole, Regret, Sad, Sad boi hours, Self-Indulgent, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Terminal Illnesses, angst fest, maybe au, the devil ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28356843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unkn0wn_Err0r/pseuds/Unkn0wn_Err0r
Summary: POV you as V during the devil ending because I can’t get over it. Exploring it and maybe possibly fixing it. Nomad V.
Relationships: Female V/River Ward, Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V, Johnny Silverhand/You, Judy Alvarez/Female V
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like there was a lack of stories about the canon endings and since I was in my feels I did it myself. This is basically angst porn bc I felt terrible after that ending and wanted to dive into what V felt like and her possible reasons for deciding the way she did and possibly how the situation could be fixed if I get that far.

Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate,  
I am the captain of my soul. ~ William Ernest Henley

Death.  
That’s all you can think about, all that you see when you look in the mirror. You tried to cheat death, you lost your soul, and now you’re going to die anyway. After you lost everything and everybody that meant anything to you. No, not lost, it wasn’t an accident. You cast them off, gave them up. Death.  
It comes to you then, what Jackie said in the elevator at Konpeki plaza before he died, about his life being like divine comedy, something like that. You and me both, Jackie, you think, you and me both.  
How had it gone so wrong? You thought back to that moment on the roof, when you made your fatal choice. The last time you saw Johnny.  
You thought you knew what you were doing, that you were steering the ship. Standing on your own two feet. Taking control. You were a lone wolf, a cold, hard, merc. An outsider among outsiders.  
In the end you didn’t know how to give up control, you didn’t know how to trust. It wasn’t in you to just lie back and let Johnny handle it. So you didn’t. But if you knew how it would end, you would have just shot yourself then and there and saved all that trouble. At least then you’d have your soul. You’d have your honor.

You could have called your boyfriend, could have called your girlfriend, but on that rooftop, cold wind blowing like fear in your face, you did neither. You said you were never one for goodbyes, but the real truth was that the only person you could have wanted with you at the end, the only person who could understand, was already right there with you.

You never thought this is how it would end up, with you in this cold, sterile room, tortured with unending tests and exams by that cunt doctor day in and out. And you look down at your body, your hands, your feet, and you know it isn’t right.  
You feel sick dread and regret, but from far away, because you don’t really feel anything strongly now. Except anger. And emptiness.  
This isn’t you any longer. It’s a copy. You’re empty. You will never be the same. In the back of your mind you know without a doubt that the you that was you is gone.  
The you that is now is cellophane, a crumpled wrapper, a discarded plastic bag, a meat suit. Trash. Dead. No soul, not real, not V.

You chose wrong. You’re haunted by those words.

You’ve always been out of control. Not like Panam, or Kerry or-or Johnny though. In a different way. Once things start spiraling you lose it. You’ve left a trail of bodies in your life. Freedom, it was all you lived and breathed. You never meant to... to betray anybody.  
Fuck it, say it you pussy, you thought. To kill Johnny.  
He was already dead! Spat that nasty, ruthless part of your head. The other part of you cringed at this. He was more alive then you’d ever been.

You were an outcast among outcasts. The cat that walks by himself. The captain of your soul.  
No. Fucking bullshit. You were a selfish bitch who never got close to anybody because you were too afraid to.  
You thought you were choosing freedom for yourself, to live and die on your own terms. Ironic that this was where it ended, you, like a sick dog dying for the now eternal Arasakas. Pathetic. You chose to live on your knees. You chose wrong.

Johnny spoke to you in dreams. His voice was cold and blunt. He told you to step from the airlock, and you fell out into the blackness of space. You saw Jackie in your dream, his eyes closed, in the dark. Dead.  
It was like ice water had been dumped over you. Jackie was your best friend at one time. He wouldn’t even know you now. You didn’t even know yourself. The person that you’d been when you were with Jackie was as far away as the earth was from this station.

You wished you’d have more of those nightmares. Why? So he would talk to you. There was a gaping Johnny sized hole in your psyche. Without him there it was too quiet. And you were so totally alone.   
You would have gladly gone through whatever phantoms and fucked up shit your brain wanted to show you at night if you could just hear his voice again.  
At times you’d hated him, and at other times... well. Fuck. You’d loved him. How could you not? He was a part of you. But that wasn’t the only reason why you’d loved him. You just had. The heart wants what it wants, like Lizzy Wizzy told you.  
Was it platonic, romantic, or even some kind of fucked up secret narcissist way of loving yourself? Who knows. You lost him, and you lost your soul, in one stroke. No. Not lost. You reminded yourself again. Take some fucking responsibility, he didn’t just wander off. You kept expecting to see him out of the corner of your eye, leaning against something, smoking. To hear him talk, rude, crude, condescending, passionate, his concern masked as an insult.

The only one you’d called was Kerry.  
Judy, River, Panam, Viktor, Rogue, let them all think you were dead, because you were dead. They wouldn’t know you now, they wouldn’t want to. You would crumble under the weight of their sorrow or disgust or disappointment. But Kerry... he didn’t give a shit, not like the others. That made it easy. He wasn’t tangled up in your web, not really. 

He didn’t give you a chance to explain or bitch about it. You told him where you were, and that you hated it. “So bust out. You don’t like it there, then leave.” He said, like it was the simplest thing ever, like he had no doubt you could. And then he had to go, because his show was on. You liked that about Kerry. He trivialized things in a way that made you see them that way too for a moment, like none of it really mattered in the long run so you might as well do what you want and fuck everything else. 

After you lost it and smashed everything Takemura had shown up, offered you the contract. Sell your soul to the corporation in exchange for eternal life. Jokes on them, you don’t have a soul. As if you would ever go through this again, become a copy thrice removed from the original V. Like a game of telephone, getting more and more fucked up each time you were passed along. You told him thanks but no thanks. At one time you were fond of Takemura. You had respected him, thought of him as a friend. Still did, in a way. But now you saw that you were cut from very different cloth, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

Back to earth. Back home. In your wildest dreams you couldn’t have guessed that you’d be looking down on your planet from space this way, glowing blue and beautiful. You were going home, to die, on your own terms, by your lonesome. The way it always was. The way you killed and bled it to keep it. You had mingled relief and grief, a weight off your chest, but your heart broken in two.


	2. The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ones a bit aimless tbh I kind of just wrote and wasn’t sure what I was writing

I can't stay knowing what's going down  
I can't stay, darkness on the edge of town  
Streetwise kids in an act of defiance  
Out to defeat what's already behind us  
Rattle and shake their political cans  
Giving directions without any plans  
There's a new kid on the block  
And he's taking my place  
Walking on my grave

~ Dead Moon, Walking On My Grave 

You briefly considered relocating, but the truth was, this apartment never held much sentiment for you. It had always been just a place to lay your head at night.

Everything that had gone down had happened out there, on the streets and alleyways and venues of night city.  
Growing up as a nomad, all places were alike. You kept running. Now you weren’t running any longer, you were crawling.

All of it was empty. Or more likely it was just you that was empty. You found yourself missing Jackie fiercely. He’d been gone a long time, but more than ever you wished you could talk to him. Being around him, everything was fun, everything was an adventure. If he were here he’d laugh and joke and call you chica, take you out to the bars, lay out another big plan to take on night city, the city he loved.

You didn’t love this city any more. Or had you ever? You’d loved some people in it. River. Judy. They were better off without you.  
Judy had moved on, she’d left you a voice mail. She was happier now, leaving this city in the dust. River? He was fine. He’d reconnected with his family, he had a cause now. He’d find somebody else. You wonder if they’d known all along that you had death hanging over you.

You were leaving the past in the past. You took on a few jobs to pass the time, not that you really needed the eddies, but the only thing you’d ever been good at was killing. It was as natural as breathing for you to have a gun in your hand. Being shot at made you feel good, it cleared away all the thoughts banging around in your head. Made you focus. Made you forget for a while.

Drugs and alcohol did that too. Throughout all the shit you’d been through in the past couple years, even with a hard living rockerboy in your head, you hadn’t turned to vices. You’d had a drink now and then, smoked a few cigarettes (thanks Johnny) but you’d never needed it. You’d needed clarity more, to be at the top of your game, best edgerunner in NC. You’d never botched a job, and you’d been proud of that.  
Who gave a fuck now? Nobody you cared about was here to see you in your disgrace, drunk and dirty. Getting drugs was as easy as candy here. Most nights you spent crossfaded and eventually puking on the bathroom floor before drifting off into numb oblivion.

Your apartment was a wreck. Bottles everywhere, fast food wrappers and stale pizzas from the rare times you remembered to eat. You lie on your couch now, the tv blaring away in the background, some nonsense you didn’t care about. You kept it on for company, so you didn’t have to hear your own thoughts.

You’d gotten shot in the thigh on the job, and you were laid up and in a world of pain.  
In your underwear on the couch, wrapped in a bloodstained blanket, a bowl to puke into beside you. You smelled like vodka and were still half drunk from last night, your excuse being self medication for the pain. Not that you needed an excuse to get fucked up anymore.

You lit up a cigarette and the smell triggered such a strong memory of Johnny that you could almost hear him, almost feel him in your head. Fat tears rolled down your face as you smoked. Tremors went through your body and you tried to hold it in. The wave of self pity and grief, the pain and hatred. You couldn’t hold it in. You wept so hard your muscles twitched and your bullet wound erupted in agony, and you fell backwards, gasping. There you were, a mess of tears and snot and blood, wailing hard enough to shake the building, choking on it. Grief so strong you could vomit from it. You screamed and slammed your fist into the coffee table, splitting your knuckles.

“I can’t fucking take it!” You cried into the couch cushions. You pushed yourself up off the couch and dragged yourself to the bathroom. You awkwardly pulled off your underwear and all but fell into the shower. The hot water washed away your tears and blood and vomit.

You woke up still in the shower, surprised you hadn’t drowned. You half wished you had. What had woken you up? It seemed like something had disrupted your sleep. Like you’d heard something, but now you weren’t sure what. You painfully got yourself to the bed.  
Something was disturbing you. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but something wasn’t right. You opened the blinds, let the neon lights and the distant sounds of a city that never slept wash over you. Your eyes started to drift shut again, your body relaxing back into the mattress.

“V”

You jerked, eyes snapping open, just on the edge of sleep. Someone had said your name, or you thought they had. You’d heard something, or felt something. Or maybe it had come from your own head.   
Eyes bleary, you looked around the apartment. Nothing. It was dead still, bathed in faint pink and blue lights flashing from billboards beyond the window. The only sound was the humming of the air conditioner and the thumping of a pipe in the upstairs neighbors wall.

You had a long, sleepless night. When morning finally came you were hungover and exhausted, and yet you had to get out of that apartment. You hobbled down to the elevators.  
“Del, take me out of the city. I don’t give a fuck where.” You said, collapsing into the back of your former A.I friends’s taxi offspring.

Del had left you his “child”, a young A.I in the form of a car. You’d melded Delamain’s personality with that of his wayward taxi offshoots.  
Personally, you’d have just as soon deleted the lot of them, killing coming easiest to you like always. Especially the little shit who’d sicced the psycho bums on you under that overpass.  
But you’d done it for Johnny, because he asked you to, because it meant something to him.  
You’d always done everything Johnny asked, though you never would have admitted it, and you always pretended to rebuff his opinions, told him to fuck off.  
Johnny always got his way. Except in the end, the last time it mattered, the only time it mattered.

You ruminated on that night again as Del drove you through the city. You thought it would be round two of Johnny’s failed career as a terrorist. You’d already been there, done that. You’d thought this was just another one of his tangents he went off on, that thing that drove him more than anything else, his hatred for Arasaka. You thought you’d find another way, that you could handle it, that you’d never get played like that. That he’d come around after, that you’d find a way to save them both, and he’d forgive you and it would be like old times.

You’d been in shock by the time you were on the operating table. It all happened so fast, and you’d been sick and out of it the whole time you were storming the tower, resurrecting Saburo, when you killed Adam Smasher.  
That had been for Johnny, as if you weren’t about to cut him out of your head, like it would fucking matter to him that you killed the man who murdered his body when you dealt the final killing blow. And you were a hell of a lot closer to him than Adam fucking Smasher. You were as close as two souls could ever be.

Del took you out into the desert and drove past the landfill, past the Aldecaros old camp. You loved the smell of the desert, the sagebrush and creosote. The way it bloomed after the rain. You’d grown up out there, in the wild deserts and highways and small towns.

You associated the smell with River now, the desert air had blown through the open windows and thin walls of the trailer on hot nights, those very few occasions you’d been able to spend time together. The walls creaking, faint distant sounds of coyotes howling and the odd roar of an engine.

You’d liked him, liked your time together, but.. you’d been afraid, the whole time. Afraid that this would distance you from Johnny, and it had a little bit, for a while. Whether it was because you were fucking a cop or just because you were fucking anyone in general, you didn’t know.

Maybe it made you a terrible person (you were) but if Johnny.. if Johnny had, fuck you couldn’t even think it to yourself. If you could have had Johnny in your life in any way that was real you’d have walked away from River without a single glance behind you.  
But you were human and you were dying and you needed the touch of another person, and River had been big and real and safe. River had been like the earth under your feet when you needed it, steady and right there.   
But Johnny, he was your moon. Silvery bright and untouchable and influencing everything you did. You were helplessly pulled in by that moon like the lone wolf you were.


	3. Crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a shorter chapter here but I felt like getting it out.

You’d done some job for the Mox and somebody must have gotten word about your declining health to Judy, because she showed up at your door a few days later. It wasn’t like you expected it would be.

“Fuck you, I’m a big girl V, let me decide what I can handle.” She admonished you when you stammered out your reasons for not getting in touch. You found it harder to put a sentence together these days, your brain was a little bit fried.

It wasn’t like before, there was nothing between you now. She’d truly moved on, and a blind person could see that you were toxic. Not in any way shape or form fit for a relationship. Anyway, even back then, you’d both been suffering and confused. She’d lost Evelyn, you’d lost Jackie, and were in the process of losing your own life. You’d kind of fallen together in a world that seemed hopeless, taken your pleasure and comfort where you could get it. But you were always friends more than anything else, and now especially things were different between you. Back then you’d been on equal ground, you being the stronger between you both even.  
  
Now it was reversed. More than reversed. She’d moved up and on while you crashed and burned. She’d taken one look around and shook her head.

“Damn V, why didn’t you call me? This place is disgusting. And you look like shit. Come on, I’m getting you out of here.”  
She took you to her old cabin by the lake. She let you lie by yourself in the dark, seeming to sense that you needed space, that your mind wasn’t in a place where you could handle all the things she could have said to you.

Now you felt stupid, remembering how she’d taken care of Evelyn, though they weren’t together then. How she’d always had a soft spot for strays. Why you’d thought she would fall apart upon seeing you.. just more of the stubborn pride and short sightedness that made you decide you had to do it on your own, over and over.

While you rested she retrieved your necessities from the apartment, your clothes and guns, the random trinkets you’d collected, Misty’s dreamcatcher, your photo of Randy, the boy who’s life you’d saved, River’s nephew. For Whom The Bell Tolls, Jackie’s book. Your favorite shirt from so long ago. The vintage recording of an early Samurai gig. She couldn’t know it but seeing that recording had you bitterly weeping in the bathroom, biting your knuckles so she wouldn’t hear.

That evening she heated up some soup. You ate it in that room you’d spent the night together so long ago. You felt like you could relax for the first time in forever, the echos of you and Judy in those days left good vibes here. Judy didn’t need to know that you drank yourself to sleep just like every night. You had to now, you’d get shaky and couldn’t function right if you didn’t.

You spent a week out there together, drinking coffee in the morning and beer at night. Eating ramen and watching TV. And smoking, so much smoking. Between the two of you you were going through multiple packs a day sometimes.  
You didn’t talk much, and she didn’t press you. Sometimes you just lie on the couch and stared off into space while she talked on the phone in the other room, catching up with people from her new life somewhere else.

Sometimes you sat in the tub for hours as the water went from hot to lukewarm to cold, smoking one cigarette after another. Sometimes you pressed the end of the cigarette into your skin and watched it burn, unflinching and detached. You felt the pain but it still didn’t feel like this was you. It never would. Whatever “you” was. V, the old V, would never have done something so morbid and pathetic. But you weren’t really her anymore. You’d really fucked up big time. 

Aside from those moments, it was nice. Nice to have a human presence around, to have somebody put food in front of you and tell you to eat. She played her shitty Lazerpunk, and worked on BDs, and your clothes smelled like laundry detergent for the first time in months.

But all too soon it was over. Judy wasn’t your nursemaid and you couldn’t expect her to be. “I got to go, V. This ain’t the place for me anymore. I’ve got a life outside night city now, I gotta get back to it. But you take care. I’ll be a phone call away if you need me.” She told you.

After she was gone you felt cold and dismal once more. The warmth seemed to have fled from the room. You took a cup of coffee out on the dock, and dangled your legs over the edge. You watched the sun creep up over the city. Fight it’s way through the smog and the clouds. The sky went from dusky grey-red with light pollution to shades of yellow, orange, and lavender. 

It had been nice of her to come out, when you’d been a shitty friend. Spending some time out here had been a slight reprieve, but the weight was already settling back on your shoulders before the dust from her car had even settled. As can so often happen, after a high comes a low. And that was your high. Pretty fucking sad.   
You packed up and went back to the city. Judy must have cleaned up your apartment while you were in another world, because it was actually habitable. The trash was gone, the bed was made.

The first thing you did was buy a bottle of vodka. Days went by. You didn’t eat, you hardly slept. You only left your apartment to buy liqueur. You didn’t want to be here anymore. Drink. Sleep. Drink. Rinse, repeat. You ignored calls from fixers and clients. Ignored the emails and texts piling up, threw a bottle at the TV when Saburo came on in Yorinobu’s body, smashed it.

You drank and kept drinking, and the more drunk you got, the more reckless you got. The less you wanted be here. The more it started to seem like the best idea you’d had yet was just to keep on drinking, finish the fifth of vodka, drink until you couldn’t wake up. And you were more than halfway there, gearing for the final third.

“Not like that. Stick some iron in your mouth and pull the trigger.”


End file.
